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The Orc Hunter stood in the middle of Dalaran and checked his watch. 17 minutes, he sighed and stared up at the sky as if pleading to the spirits of the sky to hurry and whisk him away to his Random Heroic.

He dropped his gaze and found a dusky purple Night Elf Hunter inspecting him. “What bitch?!? Want some?”, The Orc jerked his arms and shoulders up threateningly. The Night Elf shuffled off with an odd gait and the Orc sighed heavily and waited for the Gods to find him a tank.

After what seemed like a century the sound of trumpets burst forth from everywhere and his war party was assembled. He quickly confirmed and rubbed his big green hands in excitement.

He frowned ever so slightly when he saw that the Gods of Fate had placed them in front of the Halls of Reflection. Please let this be a fresh run with strong warriors, he prayed to his ancestors.

However upon taking his first few steps into the chilly lair of the Lich King he found himself standing in the bones and giblets of the previous adventurers. Grom’s Blood, he thought as he realized that the group he had joined had been struggling with this for a while. With a prayer to his Father’s Father, the Orc nocked an arrow and made his way inside…

I gave them 4 wipes. I have no idea how long they had been wiping before I got there. The first three attempts we did with three different healers. Some healers blamed the tank, one healer blamed himself, some DPS blamed the tank for not holding aggro, yadda yadda.

Me I just did my job, DPS’d the Priests first then the Mercs, trapped the ranged mobs, pew pew pew pew, misdirect here, feign death there, and wiped four times.

For the record. I have tanked that place numerous times. I have healed it several. I understand the spots that can be rough. In fact I HATE standing in the doorway or the alcove. I like to tank it in the middle using the altar to block LOS and pull the ranged to me. But I’m cool if other tanks like doing it in the corner. No biggie, if their tanking then it’s their rules.

It’s amazing to me that several people bitched about our tank’s health which was 32k. I wasn’t healing him, but his health didn’t bother me. His threat, even after a Misdirect and Feign Death, did bother me. I spent a lot of time Deterrence tanking mobs and my pet spent a lot of time playing dead.

On one attempt I was dead before I even fired a shot due to him not grabbing any of the mobs that ran past him and around the corner.

*shrug*

I don’t flip out. I don’t bad mouth other players. I just do my thing and get my badges and go home. It became clear that it wasn’t going to happen and we kept cycling through DPS, Tanks, and Healers alike. When our second tank quit after our healer made a mistake (the healer said he did, I honestly have no idea) I decided just to go to bed. It’s a good thing too because four hours later I’d be awaken by the sweet nothings of my wife throwing up in the bathroom downstairs.

I really have to say I really enjoy my Disc Priest. I just have no idea what I’m going to do with him. I’d like to join a scrub guild with him and get some raid healing practice with both a Holy spec and a Disc spec. I’d love to find a guild that was working on older content like Uld and ToC. I miss Ulduar.

ToC can suck a peen though. Boring ass shit.

I tanked a weekly Sartharion on my Paladin and my co-tank was a lesser geared Paladin who wanted to taunt stuff off me and fight for threat. Whatever. Just let me do my job, hold enough mobs to keep my mana up, and I’m happy. It’s just a suckass weekly I don’t need to act like I’m in the “Men with small penises club” and prove myself (unless I’m DPSing).

There are times I play and there are times I PLAY. When I’m playing I just want my badges. When I’m PLAYING, ALL YOUR AGGRO ARE BELONG TO ME!

That being said I miss the camaraderie I had with some of my old tanking partners. It’s an aspect of the game I don’t think DPS players get to experience. When I’m DPSing it’s me and 5 other people competing to do our personal best. If we can bring some raid utility then fine, but were just making our numbers.

But when I used to have a tanking partner, we’d hammer out a strategy, give and take when it came to duties, and we always had each other’s backs. If I saw his health dip low I might give the boss a quick taunt or if he saw me fudge up, he’d grab some extra mobs so a healer or DPS didn’t get eaten cus I didn’t get them picked up. Sometimes his threat would be rocking so I let him run with it even if I was supposed to be the “main tank” that run, sometimes I’d be on top so he’d let me run with it. There was no “mine/yours”. We worked together. It was us against the encounter, the boss, and the party. When your DPS it’s just ye, yourself, and you.

Healers I imagine have some sort of kinship like tanks do. I enjoy healing with one of our Druids because we heal like a team. Otherwise I just feel like a healbot and spam my three stupid and boring Paladin heals.

I don’t miss tanking per say. I miss the teamwork of working with another tank. We never made a big deal of it, we just talked before the raid or in whispers. Half the time it was unspoken and we just handled our shit.

Sometimes I get bored as a DPS and wish there was something more immersive I could do during a run. Dunno.

I remember when it was ‘WoTLK will fix it’. Now it’s ‘Cata will fix it’. But really… there is no fix, just growth that is painful and messy and fun and challenging, as the game changes and us little minions sit back and take whatever they give us in the end.